French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday he is going through “painful moments” in his personal life after a magazine report that he is having a secret affair with an actor.

The latest revelations call into question whether a complex personal life can be private for someone with round-the-clock bodyguards, and about the role of “first lady” in France. His partner Valerie Trierweiler is the first person to hold the post who was not married to the President.

The pictures published in Closer included one of a man the magazine said was Mr. Hollande being ferried by motorcycle to an apartment where the actor Julie Gayet waited.

Twenty years ago, the same photographer, Sebastien Valiela, rocked France’s political establishment with images that revealed the secret family of then-President Francois Mitterrand, showing the Socialist leader emerging from a restaurant with the daughter he had never acknowledged.

The issue even reached the floor of parliament on Tuesday. A leading legislator from the opposition conservative UMP party accused the President of taking unreasonable risks with his security.

“The President is not a normal citizen during his term. He is the chief of our Armies. He is the keystone of our institutions. His protection should not suffer from any amateurism,” Christian Jacob said in the National Assembly. “The President should be aware of the level of responsibility that he exercises, be aware that his role is greater than his person, and be aware that he incarnates the image of France in the eyes of the world.”

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault tried to defend his boss, insisting that Mr. Hollande “has only one concern... the future of France, the return to growth, the fight for jobs” and that the debate about his private life “isn’t worthy of a great democracy”.

Photographer Valiela said he was surprised at the lack of security for Hollande, whose government has been repeatedly threatened by al-Qaeda.

“To go to the rendezvous with Julie Gayet, he was taking some risks,” he told RTL. “As soon as he got into the apartment, his guards left.”

Francois Rebsamen, a Socialist lawmaker who counts himself among Mr. Hollande’s friends, said the revelations showed the entire idea of a first lady was obsolete.

“Francois Hollande himself said it at one point — You elect a person. And then this person can live alone, can be single, can live with another man or a woman. It’s no one’s business and it doesn’t come into play,” he told RTL radio on Tuesday.

Dominique Moisi, a French political analyst, said Mr. Hollande who was already the most unpopular President in modern French history before the recent revelations had brought the scrutiny on himself.

“He wanted to impress the French with the fact that he was a normal man, that he was a man of dignity, simplicity, moral rigor,” he said. “Suddenly the French are discovering that he is like others, but in a less glorious manner, even a ridiculous manner.”

It's not the first time that we hear about a secret affair of a French president. Chirac and Mitterand were involved in secret affairs but nobody cared about it. It's because Holland's performance as a President is devastating and his popularity is at it's lowest ebb he's been targeted by the press and the opposition. I agree that he acted like a normal human being in the urge of meeting his lover instead of acting like a President of a country. Love makes you blind even if you are the President of a country.